1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print processing method, a print relay server, a control method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A configuration for a server to provide a service to a client has conventionally existed. As an example, there is a technique for a client to send a print instruction to a server and the server that has received the print instruction to convert a content to be printed into print data.
In recent years, a cloud computing system capable of using various types of applications operating in a server computer on the Internet to reduce management/maintenance cost of servers installed in a company and the applications has been paid attention to.
The cloud computing performs data conversion and data processing in a distributed manner using a large number of computing resources and simultaneously processes requests from a large number of clients as a main feature. On a cloud computing environment for implementing the cloud computing, there have currently been too many vendors respectively having web services mounted thereon and providing various types of services.
Among the vendors, Google (registered trademark) is to be paid attention to. Google (registered trademark) proposes services to be provided in cooperation with devices in addition to establishing a large number of large-scale data centers, and makes positive moves such as development of a mechanism for data communication between the devices and services.
Devices that cooperate with various types of services provided in the cloud computing can include a printer and a digital multifunction peripheral (collectively referred to as an image forming apparatus) used when paper media are scanned and computerized and electronic data is printed. The image forming apparatus may be installed in a company (an intranet). When an application exists on the internet, a method considering security such as a firewall is required for the application and the Internet to cooperate closely with each other, as compared with that when the image forming apparatus and the application exist in the intranet.
Google (registered trademark) has developed a method for data communication for providing services in cooperation with an image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus has opened an interface for the image forming apparatus to perform data communication with a cloud computing environment provided by Google (registered trademark). A user who desires to use the service is required to register information about the image forming apparatus in the cloud computing environment, i.e., a service environment for providing the service.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-276314 discusses a configuration in which a user reserves, when performing printing using an image forming apparatus, a print job in a print server once, operates an operation panel of the image forming apparatus, and outputs a desired print job. According to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-276314, when a printer shared among a plurality of users and groups prints a highly-confidential document, the document can be managed as a print job in a print server on a network when a user name is input to issue a reservation instruction.